BIG Problems with graphic sign supplies

[Lynn Normington]

Hi Roff’s

bought one several months ago received within about two day’s no probs at all .I really don’t think you should be doing this here without giving them right to reply.

Lynn

[Andy Gorman]

But if a reasonable amount of phone calls have been made then I think this is just the place to raise this issue. Isn’t this part of what the site is about – supplier critique?

I think you’ll get edited by admin though, maybe you’re a bit angry at the moment and could be a bit more diplomatic in your comments, Roffs. I’d be annoyed too, though.

[Shane Drew]

Sounds like roffs is at the end of his tether lynn. Frustrated to say the least.

I’d say too, that after 2 months, they have had plenty of time to ‘reply’.

Just my 2c. I would do something similar if in the same position.

Cheers

[Roy Roffey]

thats fair Lynn,

but if you had bought a product from a company, paid for it, not recieved your goods and been fobbed off by said staff i just think i should voice my concerns to my fellow sign makers and also see if a pattern is forming??

that just my opinion

[Robert Lambie]

we dont edit anything unless it breaks the rules. 😕
roff has gave his rant and then backed his veiw/opinion by his experience. fair play.

[Roy Roffey]

thanks guys – now that’s off my chest

the post was just to see if anyone has come across the same service from this company – not to offend anyone

if i have then i apologize

[Lynn Normington]

with all due respect Roff’s we only have your side of the story, there could be other reasons why they haven’t delivered . haven’t had a bad experiance with them perhaps others have (?)

Lynn

[Peter Normington]

So who edited the subject then?
peter

[Robert Lambie]

WHO DO YOU THINK? :lol1:

CANT WE DO THIS NOW, OR SHOULD WE HAVE LEFT IT AS IT WAS?

[Andy Gorman]

I’m not offended. I love complaining about stuff and I understand your frustration completely.

Have you asked for or got a refund?

BTW Rob, are you saying the original subject title didn’t break board rules?

[Robert Lambie]

the post didnt break rules mate but we felt the topic was a bit too strong so we watered it down a bit. 😀

[Roy Roffey]

hey big g

this is thing mate after about 3 weeks ( reasonable time i think ) i did request a refund for the amount paid

guess what – no money – no mat

[Andy Gorman]

In that case your original subject title was completely justified.
Surely a law is being broken here? Taking money and not supplying goods! 👿

[Robert Lambie]

it was justified mate, but cursing is not allowed and gave an aggresive approach. so we felt the need to water it down a bit 😀

[Peter Normington]

Cherwell do the same mat If its the 8×4 for less
Peter

[Keith Nilsen]

Peter, you got any further details for them? I have Googled and failed to find an actual website for them. Lots of references but no site! Thanks in advance…

[Andy Gorman]

01280 840297

8′ x 4′ cutting mat £105.00

Sorry to jump in Peter.

They don’t have a website. They’ve only just got electric in Brackley!

[Lee Ballard]

Distance selling regs require you to have been either sent the product or offered a full refund after 28days, unless they have made you aware and you have agreed with the timescale if they are having supply problems.

So if no mat today, phone them, quote dist selling regs and have immediate refund.

If they have sent the mat, then thats their problem 😀

Lee

Disclaimer 😀 99% sure the above is correct a quick google will confirm for you.

[Phil Halling]

They’ve only just got electric in Brackley!

When did that happen then, havn’t worked there for 2or3 weeks ?

And yes , if you are getting poor service why should’nt you voice an opinion to fellow consumers especially within our chosen trade.
Now about Vict………

Phil

[Jayne Marsh]

Its so annoying when you pay your money and dont receive the goods in reasonable time and no reasonable explanation is offered. You should do what I always do in these circumstance…………pester. I will ring and ring and pester and pester until they finally cave in and send the stuff, if only to shut me up! :lol1:
If not I send the heavy boys in! 😮
Or threaten them with the press or watchdog!

[Chris Dowd]

Hmmmmm….. I know what I would be doing in this situation, I would contact my Credit Card Company and claim a refund, then buy from a different supplier!!

[Shane Drew]

quote Robert Lambie:

WHO DO YOU THINK? :lol1:

CANT WE DO THIS NOW, OR SHOULD WE HAVE LEFT IT AS IT WAS?

😳 didn’t notice the subject heading had been changed 😳 Does not worry me either way tho, the content is the same…

[Roy Roffey]

UPDATE

Having received a call from Steve of Graphic Sign Supplies this morning informing me that he has read the post. He offered me his apologies and assured me that i will have the cutting mat tomorrow ( Friday ), as well as this he has kindly offered me a 20% discount on my next order.

[Shane Drew]

Roffs, I hope he appreciates now that some in the industry expect to get the same service they are expected to give…. if that makes sense. 😮

Well done mate. He still got of light at 20% in my opinion.

At least he made an offer tho.

Cheers

[Gwaredd Steele]

Nice one Roffs. Nice result. If we don’t complain about it, then we don’t have a right to moan.

I remember getting well & truly shafted by Graphytip UK a few years ago. They sent us some dodgy vinyl that started to lift on various customers work. When we complained, they kept fobbing us off untill one day we got pretty heavy & they told us to F**k off & take our business elsewhere.

Shocking service & caused us a great deal of expense & embarassment, so I’ll have no qualms in rubbishing there service in any future posts, even though I see a few of you guys use them.

It’s our duty to inform one another about the ‘bad eggs’ out there.

Cheers,

Gareth.

[Nigel Pugh]

Gareth,

No supplier likes to be seen in a bad light, but I would be very surprised if anyone from here would have told you to go away in such colourful language.

If you have a spare minute then I would be more than happy for you to call and let me know where we went wrong.

Nigel

[Kevin Flowers]

Suppliers like the praise when we on the boards get a good service from them and say so, so they have to expect to get the slagging when they give us a bad service. The boards are about a community of signmakers sharing advice and experience etc relating to our trade that includes the good and bad dealings that we have with suppliers, that doesn’t mean the supplier is to be avoided but just a warning of how that supplier deals with things when they have got it wrong

Kev

[Iain Gordon]

Fair play to you Nigel

Hope everyone comes out ok

Iain

[Gwaredd Steele]

Hi Nigel. Thought I recognized the face!

Like I said, this was a good few years ago, & customer service may have been improved since then, but here’s a very quick brief of what happened.

We were using your 7 year material exclusively for a good few years up until this happened. On using a new roll, during weeding I immediately noticed that it was not as sticky as previous rolls. I immediately rang up & questioned whether I had been sent the wrong grade, but I was assured all was OK & to use it.

We ordered more & more stock in, again, all of it didn’t feel as sticky & we again questioned whether it was the right grade or if the manufacturing process, glue etc had been changed, but we were promised that everything was the same as it always had been.

Then, out of the blue, a very good customer rang to say some of his vinyl was lifting. We went to investigate, thinking it would be around a curve or something, but no, it was on a completely flat panel.
We duly replaced it & off we went.

Shortly after, he rang again, to say more was lifting all over the vehicle. Then the unthinkable happened & the phone literally went mad, all with customers saying their vinyl was peeling off.

We rang your guys & after being pushed pillar to post, were told to write to your MD Les Guilbert (?) which we did. He wrote a nice letter to say he’d send someone or himself to investigate, so we arranged meetings with various customers to meet up at the same time to show Les their respective vehicles, only, nobody from Graphityp turned up. Very embarrassing.

We again rang, & were told Les was in a meeting. In fact, Les was in a meeting for an awfully long time, a few days in fact, but he did have time to send us a letter stating quite clearly that nothing had changed with the vinyl & it categorically wasn’t his fault, despite never seeing the effected vehicles or vinyl.

By this time we had swapped to Avery 700 & had put right all the customers vehicles that we had lettered in this latest batch of Graphityp vinyl with Avery at our considerable expense & time. We again contacted you to say what we had done & will be expecting compensation. Les then actually managed to ring us to try & sort the situation out, but it very quickly became apparent that he still would not accept any blame whatsoever & when we started to talk about small claims courts, he, in no uncertain terms, told us that he didn’t want our business & not to contact him again.

A very unsatisfactory result in the end, the only consolation being that we didn’t get to pay our last (admittedly hefty) bill, but that didn’t help much when we had to buy all new stock, (how could we trust the existing stock with that kind of warranty?) replace the effected customers work & ultimately, lose a few customers in the process.

It was a real shame because all the girls in the office were really great (especially Sue, is she still there?) completely ruined by an unwilling & completely arrogant MD.

For the record, the new Avery stuff stayed on fine & we have never had any kind of problem like this ever since.

Thanks for the offer Nigel, but you’ll forgive me if I decline, as I can’t ever risk going back to Graphityp for anything ever again. I hope you understand. Once bitten, twice shy & all that. 🙁

Cheers,

Gareth.

[Nigel Pugh]

Gareth,

Thanks for the reply, blimey there isn’t anything I can really say to make what you wrote seem any better than bad.

From our records it does seem that you last traded with us over five years ago, and things do move on and even may I say can get better / improved.
I do understand your grievance and why you would never consider using us for anything ever again.

I dare say that many of us on here have suffered at the hands of suppliers at some stage, even me, and did not get the service we would have expected to receive.

All I can do Gareth is apologise on behalf of our company for failing you, if ever you have any questions or queries please feel free to contact me.

Nigel

[Roy Roffey]

and theres me moaning over a cutting mat,

on reflection i use grafityp and have a good service from them – swings and roundabouts i guess

😀 😀 😀 😀

[Signs & Wonders]

Nigel

“I dare say that many of us on here have suffered at the hands of suppliers at some stage, even me, and did not get the service we would have expected to receive.”

Tony

[John Simpson]

I have been using Graphityp for approx 2 1/2 years now & must admit to good service from Joe, one of the managers.
I usually buy the cast vinyl that i print onto from them as it is a lot cheaper than other suppliers. On one occasion the 1550 mm roll turned up in a terrible condition (lack of packing) as i opened the end of the box it came in i noticed there was no plastic roll end that stops it from rolling about in the box, no plastic bag covering the roll & the box it self badly damaged at both ends. The edge of the roll of cast vinyl was badly damaged as well.

I did not even take it out of the box, I phoned Joe at Graphityp (insisted on speaking to him) He assured me he would replace same day.

Approx 3 hours later Joe himself turned up in Graphityp van with new roll & uplifted the original damaged roll ( after a coffee) He apologised profusely & i have never had any more probs with them since.

[Peter Shaw]

I’d like to add my voice in praise of Grafityp and particularly Jo.

He’s always got a good helpful attitude and was the only supplier to get me an ICC profile for my Cadet to match vinyl/RIP/machine. While the other suppliers I use are gradually catching up, I find Grafityp’s digital materials excellent.

They don’t always get it right, but I can honestly say they’ve always sorted problems quickly.

Peter

[Brian Curtis]

We liked using Grafityp until a couple of years ago when we had some serious issues with them, so we stopped using them and wouldn’t go back.

We have one supplier who is quite often out of stock of items and so they get placed on back order. When you phone up a week later to find out if the stock is in yet, they say ‘yes, it’s been in a few days’ and ask us what we need again. Then about a month down the line, they ask us if we still need the first order.

But don’t you find that with all suppliers, its whether they keep you informed. If they telephone you and say they are having a problem then you can cope with that.

Brian

[Nigel Pugh]

quote :

We have one supplier who is quite often out of stock of items and so they get placed on back order. When you phone up a week later to find out if the stock is in yet, they say ‘yes, it’s been in a few days’ and ask us what we need again. Then about a month down the line, they ask us if we still need the first order.

But don’t you find that with all suppliers, its whether they keep you informed. If they telephone you and say they are having a problem then you can cope with that.

Brian

Brian, you said if suppliers ring to say that they have a problem with your order then your happy because at least you know. Ok but why in your previous paragraph why do you say you ring your one supplier to see if the stock has arrived, haven’t you contradicted yourself there, shouldn’t they be ringing you.

Nigel

[Robert Lambie]

Wow this thread has developed into a bit of a monster…. :yikes:

As has been said, the boards are here for us all… to help, advise, and share experiences, whatever… As long as everything is to board rules and in particular with the current discussion on graphic sign supplies and grafityp, keeping to the facts only…
We will run with the thread of course. But we don’t want this place turning into some sort of slanging ground for us all to start holding a gun to supplier’s heads or simply to be bitchy. (Believe me this has already been done on a few occasions). 😕
This isn’t the first time suppliers have been complained about here, “You name them” they have been shot down at some point on the boards. Even “I” have my rants from time to time. 😉
There is something to consider though. Before we, the judges, take side. The boards get around 100,000 visitors each month, yesterday alone so over 3000 visits. I am willing to bet, if I name any UK trade supplier on this site, right now, we will have a string of stories, complaints. Each one as bizarre as the next. It’s a dead cert, we have so many visitors on this site with very few supplying us all. So of course we will have problem stories to tell. No supplier is perfect; some suppliers have great service in one part of the country and crap in another. Some have great products and crap service. None have the full package of perfection.

You are maybe sitting reading this thinking what a lot of kak rob! If so… for a second, spin the table on yourself, put all your customers since you began into one room, at one time, and ask them all. “what they think of “your” service/products over the years?” 😉

Where did you all go… come back! 😮

just for the record
with regards to the two companies coming under fire just now, I have dealt with both and found them very professional. over the last two years I have met both Steve lamb of Graphic Sign Supplies and Les Gilbeirt on their stands at Sign UK, both perfect gentlemen… when I read what was allegedly said by Mr Guilbert, I was particularly shocked, you couldn’t meet a nicer, funnier guy. If he did say what was said, I must say it is completely out of character, an off day or whatever. Infact, Dewi, Big G, Lee Harris, myself and others from the UKSG spent some time on the grafityp stand chatting to all the staff, everyone was very helpful and friendly. Maybe it was the free beer we got surrounded by women that blurred out vision, who knows? :lol1: :lol1: :lol1:

.

[Brian Curtis]

Nigel

I suppose I was trying to keep my answer short and didn’t explain the whole story. Yes they should be ringing me, but this one supplier never does – its always me that has to chase them.

I don’t have a problem with a supplier being out of stock, the problem I have with this one supplier is that I have learnt from them that if they place something on back order, you would assume that when it comes in to them, they would check their orders and then send it out directly.

This supplier just seems to sit on the back orders, so I have learnt that I have to chase them. It happened this week in fact. I have a special price on some items at the moment because I require a lot of them over a 12 month period, therefore, I have arranged a discount.

I order a certain amount of items, some were out of stock until Wednesday so they were placed on back order. Therefore, I expected to receive them yesterday as they are on overnight delivery.

When I didn’t receive them yesterday, I telephoned them to find out where they were, to which the response was ‘they may be in to us by the end of the day in which case they will be posted to you tomorrow, so that you receive them on Monday’.

This is annoying in itself when I was expecting the items to be delivered on Thursday, but my point is that it is even more annoying that they couldn’t telephone me to tell me this on Wednesday.

As I said, if my supplier keeps me informed without me having to chase around, then I’m generally happy.

I hope I haven’t contradicted myself again.

Brian

[Gwaredd Steele]

Hi Nigel.

That’s very nice of you to offer an apology & I gladly accept. It’s a shame it has had to come from you 5 years later & not from the person responsible. It’s also a shame to hear that Les is such a nice man face to face & when things are going rosy at a sign show, but let me assure you, when confronted with a problem, this most certainly was not the case.

Anyhoo, it’s not my intention to bitch about Graphityp anymore, let sleeping dogs lie, I say.

Cheers,

Gareth.

[Nigel Pugh]

Brian,

Sorted now thanks.

Gareth yep I agree, time to let things be.

Nigel

[Signs & Wonders]

Gareth

I am glad you have finally received an apology from Grafityp after 5 years, but you still did not get the compensation due to you.

I unfortunateley have had to resort to court action against Grafityp, we have a hearing next week. Details are posted elsewhere, so I will not go into it here.

I will advise of the outcome next week.

Tony

[Shane Drew]

Well said Rob.

[Roy Roffey]

UPDATE:

guess who got their cutting mat

yes me

[Robert Lambie]

good for you mate, glad to see things are now sorted for you 😉

[Lynn Normington]

I’m glad it’s sorted as well have used (still use) both companys never had a problem 🙂

Lynn